eMagin Corporation will begin taking orders for its SVGA 3DS OLED-XL microdisplay at next week’s Night Vision Conference in Washington, D,C. The company expects to begin shipping the product in the first quarter of 2008.

The SVGA-3DS microdisplay offers both analog and digital signal processing in a compact display (0.44-inch) with greater power efficiency. This high-density OLED-on-silicon microdisplay promises an affordable, easy-to-integrate solution for many virtual imaging systems. eMagin’s SVGA-3DS microdisplays eliminate the need for extra circuitry and components while allowing for a smaller display module design with increased functionality, with no increase in power consumption.

Specific improvements include increased pixel uniformity, improved color gamut, on-chip temperature sensor and compensation, and compatibility with both analog RGB and digital video signals. The 800 x 600-pixel array comprises triads of vertical sub-pixels stacked side by side to make up each 11.1 x 11.1-micrometer color pixel. Versatile timing controls accommodate a variety of video formats. On-board circuitry ensures consistent color and brightness over a wide range of operating temperatures.

Novaled and Sunic System will develop a new generation of deposition tools and organic materials to improve the deposition process and lifetime of TFE. In this collaboration Novaled will call on its experience in organic structures and skills in organic materials. Sunic System will provide its expert knowledge on both organic and inorganic deposition and encapsulation equipment.

"A new organic material for TFE needs to be developed together with the associated deposition tool," states Gildas Sorin, CEO of Novaled. "The cooperation with Sunic System will bring to market a turn-key solution enabling customers to rapidly ramp-up to high volumes at reasonable costs."

Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest quality steel maker, and Novaled, OLED technology and material provider, have joined forces for a new OLED project. The partners are developing top-emitting OLEDs on flexible substrates for signage and lighting purposes since 2006.

By using Arcelor Mittal's steel plates as substrates, remarkable properties for bendable OLED applications can be achieved. Metallic substrates offer several advantages. Compared to standard glass-sheets they are more robust and durable and commonly produced by roll-to-roll process. This production method can be adapted to a subsequent inline process for OLED-deposition enabling high through-put manufacturing with low tact time. In this collaboration Novaled contributes both its broad technical experience with respect to highly efficient and stable OLED device architectures as well as its material know-how for doped transport layers.

Universal Display Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a $935,000 contract extension by the U.S. Army Communication Electronics Research and Development Engineering Center (CERDEC). The extension builds on an existing Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III grant with CERDEC for the development of flexible, active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display technology for demonstration in a prototype wrist-based communications device.

Development efforts under the contract extension will focus on combining Universal Display's PHOLED(TM) phosphorescent OLED technology with LG.Philips LCD (LPL) amorphous-Silicon (a-Si) TFT technology. Bringing LPL, a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT-LCDs), to the program as a development partner marks an important step toward the commercialization of flexible OLED display products. In May, the two companies showcased the world's first high-resolution AMOLED display built on flexible metal foil at the 2007 Society for Information Display Conference and Symposium. Building on this initial demonstration, Universal Display and LPL plan to work on a prototype with key design and performance enhancements under this program.

L-3 Communications Display Systems (L-3 Display Systems), a leading supplier of ruggedized display systems for military uses and a long-standing partner under this program, is responsible for designing and integrating its advanced communications components with the QVGA, full-color, flexible AMOLED display into the prototype wrist-mounted communications device for delivery to CERDEC.

Universal Display was awarded Phase III of the SBIR grant by CERDEC in January 2006. The Company's work with the U.S. Department of Defense also includes flexible AMOLED display development for the U.S. Army Research Laboratories (ARL), the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Research Laboratories.

Seiko Epson has a production line at its Nagano plant and aims to take orders for OLED panels by the end of the year. The plant is capable of manufacturing several thousand OLED panels a year, the daily said. The company has expanded the life span of OLED panels to more than 50,000 hours compared with the maximum life of standard OLED devices, which is typically 30,000 hours, Nikkei said.



OLED panels, which emit light when an electrical charge is passed through the surface, are lighter and thinner than existing LCD panels or plasma displays, and boast higher contrast pictures, but are also more expensive.



The company plans to start making an eight-inch business-use OLED monitor that is 2.8 millimeter thick at its thinnest part. The production line is also capable of manufacturing larger models of up to 21 inches, the daily said.

Art Lebedev Studiods OLED keyboard (Optimus Maximus) has cleared the FCC. The wireless keyboard will also include 512MB in a SD card to store the icons for the OLED displays.

The keyboard will be delayed a bit, and will not be able to ship before the end of the year.

Samsung SDI this week will announce its intention to produce the world's first 3-inch WVGA (480 x 800) active-matrix (AM) OLED panel, using PenTile subpixel rendering technology from Clairvoyante Inc. PenTile technology makes it possible to attain WVGA performance by eliminating one-third of the subpixels while maintaining the same display resolution.

Anticipating a strong demand for OLED technology, Samsung recently invested in additional capacity. Industry research group Display Search predicts that the AM OLED market will grow to $5.58 billion by 2011, up from $220.5 million in 2007. Samsung has been fabricating OLED panels since August 2002 for applications in car audio systems, electronic games, MP3 players and, now, cell phones.

CMEL will begin shipping 2.8-inch AMOLED (active matrix organic light-emitting diode) orders to China handset vendors in October or November, noted Chen.

The company will show its latest 4.3-inch and 7.6-inch AMOLED panels during at FPD International 2007 (October 24-26) in Yokohama, Japan. The 7.6-inch product is targeting the digital photo frame market. Meanwhile, the Taiwan AMOLED supplier expects to ship 8.1-inch segment products in the second half of 2008.

Rohm is showing off at this week's Ceatec exhibition a prototype full-colour OLED screen that's smaller than a fingernail, yet offers resolution of 320 pixels by 240 pixels. The tiny display, which measures approximately 4 millimeters (mm) by 3 mm, is embedded in a prototype chip and is designed for use in a video-camera viewfinder, said Yasufumi Ueno, a Rohm spokesman.

Plans to commercialize the prototype display are not yet confirmed.

National’s LM4510 is a synchronous high-voltage boost regulator that supports OLED displays which are much thinner and consume less energy than liquid crystal displays (LCDs). The LM4510 features up to 85 percent efficiency for longer battery life and is offered in a small LLP® package.

Technical Features of National’s LM4510 OLED Display Power Supply
National’s LM4510 is a current-mode, step-up DC-DC converter with a 1.2A internal NMOS switch designed to deliver up to 80 mA at 18V from a Li-Ion battery. The synchronous operation at heavy loads and non-synchronous operation at light loads allow it to achieve up to 85 percent efficiency for longer battery life in power-constrained applications. Moreover, the true shutdown isolation feature eliminates leakage current paths to ground in stand-by mode. The device reduces the total solution size and cost through elimination of an external Schottky diode and from a 3.2V input, delivering a current range from 18V to 5V. The system designer can optimize line and load transient responses using the external compensation network in a broad range of applications, such as USB power supply or OLED display bias. Finally, the LM4510 offers a very robust solution due to the feedback fault and short-circuit protection feature on the output. The LM4510 is available in a 10-pin thermally enhanced LLP® package.